Unless we follow Norway, Brexit Britain is in danger of being grounded

A plane of Irish low-cost airline Ryanair stands in front of planes of German airline LufthansaCredit:
ANDREAS ARNOLD

As the great Brexit shambles continues, one of the most telling hints as to whether our politicians have the faintest clue of what they are talking about is when they imagine that we can somehow leave the EU but remain in its “Customs Union”.

The likes of Philip Hammond and Chuka Umunna, the leader of last week’s Labour rebels, clearly haven’t even got to square one in their failure to grasp that a country can only be in the "Customs Union" if it is a full member of the EU (under treaty rules laid down in 1957).

What they should be focusing on instead is the EU’s sophisticated system of "Customs Co-operation”, set up in 1994, which is what allows 14,000 lorries a day to move effortlessly between Dover and Calais, as also across the Northern Irish border, and much else besides.

They should also be heeding the growing alarm over what could happen if we are excluded from the equally complex...